NOVEL NEXT 33. Titan Fall
The fortress shudders, stone cracking as its master's death weakens ancient wards. Through smoke and falling debris, I spot it, the Duke's skull bobbing in cooling lava, blackened bone calling to borrowed bone.
His remains pulse with lingering power, offering dark evolution. These fragments sense the opportunity. Demon bone could strengthen this frame, make it larger, more terrible.
The temptation pulls at borrowed purpose. But not all bones deserve choosing.
My damaged hand reaches out, not to absorb but to grasp. Skeletal fingers close around the Duke's horned skull, lifting it from molten rock.
The bone steams, corruption trying to spread through my arm. No matter. These chosen bones are stronger than empty promises of corruption.
With deliberate force, I slam the skull against broken stone. Cracks spread across its surface. Again I strike and then again.
Each impact weakens the whole. The Duke's skull finally shatters. Fragments scatter.
The largest section, nearly half the cranial dome with one curved horn still attached, catches attention in lava's glow. I lift this piece, testing its weight and curve.
The bone resists my touch at first, trying to reject as I compel it to serve. Ancient runes flicker across this damaged form, spreading to the demon skull fragment. Resistance fades.
With precise movements, I tear strips from my tattered cloak, wrapping them around the skull piece's jagged edges to form a grip. The fabric smolders but holds, demon bone accepting its new purpose.
I slide my arm through the makeshift straps, positioning the curved fragment as a shield. Heat radiates from the bone, but these blackened bones have known deeper heat.
The shield pulses once, demon magic clashing with the power animating my form before settling into grudging servitude. I flex my shield arm, testing the weight.
The bone proves lighter than steel yet just as strong. Even in death, the Duke's remains will serve a purpose he never intended.
I hold Demon Shield before my hollow sockets. These bones remember Haven's walls. Remember children playing in brief sunlight.
Remember duty that transcends mere power. My fingers trace patterns with blackened bone carving deep into surface of Demon Shield. The mark of Haven takes shape.
The fortress groans. Support pillars crack. The ceiling begins to cave. I have lingered too long.
The floor buckles as I run, each step finding less purchase than the last. Demon Shield decorated with Haven's mark clutched tight in one hand.
My frame moves, leaping gaps where stone falls away. A support beam crashes down. I roll beneath, losing pieces of damaged bones in the process.
No time to recover them. The whole structure comes apart around me. Another leap carries me over a spreading chasm.
My legs barely leave the edge before it crumbles. Ahead, the corridor fills with falling rock.
I charge forward, shouldering through debris. Plates crack. Bones splinter. Purpose drives these fragments onward.
The outer gate appears through smoke and dust. Almost. The ceiling collapses.
Tons of stone and corrupted metal slam into my titan frame. Bones crack under impossible weight. Armor shatters.
My skull stares upward as more debris piles on, burying these borrowed fragments in the fortress's death throes. Darkness claims everything.
Time passes in the crushing dark. These bones lie scattered, broken beneath the fortress's corpse.
The Duke's marked skull fragment rests nearby, Haven's symbol barely visible through layers of dust. But purpose endures.
Under crushing stone and corrupted metal, consciousness fragments like the bones that hold it. Individual memories surface as the whole forgets itself.
A femur remembers charging through demon lines, its owner refusing to fall until reinforcements arrived. The bone still holds echoes of that final stand, steel meeting claw that met flesh, war cries turning to death rattles, duty holding firm even as blood filled the soil.
Ribs recall different deaths. One protected a heart that beat its last under Demon King's sword. Another cracked saving a fellow soldier.
Each fragment remembers vague memories of lives once lived. Finger bones remember gripping weapons, writing final letters, farewell embraces with families not remembered.
A thumb that pulled bowstring until flesh blistered and broke. Knuckles that bloodied themselves on monster scales when blade shattered.
None of these bones remember running, remember retreat. Only sacrifice and grim defeat.
Vertebrae share older memories. Dragon bone recalls soaring through storm-wracked skies, breathing magic breaths that cracked mountain sides.
Pride and power before the coming of the Demon King. Death brought clarity.
The skull, this skull's newest fragment, remembers being a captain who held a position while others pulled back to next battle line. Pride in that choice still echoes through yellowed bone.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
No regret, only satisfaction that first of the Demon Duke's have fallen. Each bone carries final moments, last stands, desperate choices.
They remember being other things, serving other causes. Yet something feels wrong about these scattered recollections.
Personal heroism matters less than shared purpose. Haven's walls come forth in fractured memory.
Children playing in brief sunlight after corruption's heart was destroyed. A commander planning defenses through endless siege.
A girl who kept faith when others doubted. The stone thrower who guided his people to Haven and then died somewhere outside its walls.
The fragments remember. Individual stories mean nothing without greater calling. Borrowed bones answer purpose beyond glory.
Magic stirs weakly. My finger bones twitch first, scrabbling against confining stone. Then ribs shift, seeking proper alignment.
Each fragment remembers its place in the greater whole. Bones twitch in the dark seeking familiar joints and place in spine.
My form reassembles itself slowly, piece by broken piece. The magic works slower now, taxed by recent battles.
No matter. These chosen bones know patience. Death is not the end, merely a pause between duties.
Not all fragments can be salvaged. Too many shattered under falling stone. But enough remain to serve.
There will be transformation. Hours stretch. The titan form cannot be fully restored, but purpose needs no specific shape.
My hand pushes through packed rubble. Then arm. Shoulder. Skull.
Each piece remembering its place in the greater form, driven by the same force that first roused these bones from blood-soaked soil.
I emerge under open sky, frame smaller but purpose unchanged. Let the fragments keep their individual tales. The whole remembers what matters, duty that transcends death itself.
Movement catches hollow eye sockets. A familiar three-armed form crouches atop rubble nearby.
Pan watches with seven yellow eyes, surrounded by surviving demons who fled the collapsing fortress.
"Bone walker lives," he announces to his followers. "Just as I said."
The demons shift nervously. Some bear Marnac's sigils on cracked armor. Others show marks of the Duke's service.
Without masters, they cluster around Pan, who now wears a crown of bent metal salvaged from the ruins.
"We thought you crushed," Pan continues. "Yet here you stand. Changed, but unbroken."
I survey my reduced form. Where once fifteen feet of titan bone towered, now a frame closer to human height remains. Lighter. Faster perhaps. Different but sufficient.
Pan slides down the rubble slope, approaching with cautious respect. "The Duke falls. Marnac falls. Power shifts." He gestures to his gathered followers. "Some serve new master now."
I care nothing for demon politics. Haven waits. These bones know their path.
"Not staying to claim territory?" Pan questions. "Fair enough. More for Pan and his new court." His head tilts, studying my reduced frame. "What will you seek now, bone walker? What drives these dead bones onward?"
I turn away, searching the rubble. Aeternus calls from beneath stone and steel. My hand finds the hilt, pulling the blade free.
The sword emerges, changed like its wielder. The blade, once nearly as tall as my titan frame, has transformed to match my new proportions. Ancient runes still pulse along its length.
Aeternus feels different in hand. The balance shifted, changed, to this reduced frame.
Pan watches as I test the sword's new weight.. "A fine weapon," he observes. "Still deadly, though smaller. Like its master."
I retrieve Demon Shield from nearby rubble, securing it to my arm.
The Duke's transformed skull settles into place, Haven's mark facing outward.
"The shield speaks volumes," Pan notes. "You serve Haven still, even in death." He steps back, gesturing for his followers to clear a path. "We claim the Duke's fallen territories. Best our paths not cross again, bone walker."
I pause, studying Pan and his makeshift court of displaced demons. These creatures without masters now follow the cunning scout who survived both lords' falls.
Opportunity reveals itself.
My finger move over Haven's mark on Demon Shield. Pan's eyes follow the movement.
HAVEN STANDS.
I write in dirt.
Pan crouches to read, then rises with a calculating grin. "And bone walker protects Haven. Interesting arrangement." He taps his third arm against his thigh. "Pan respects strength. You killed two masters where armies failed. First one, then the other, two, not one, then walk away. Pan knows strength."
I sketch more words. "What becomes of these lands?"
"Chaos," Pan answers, spreading all three arms. "Many will claim. Fight. Die. Unless," He steps closer, voice dropping. "Unless clear borders established. Territory recognized."
I understand his meaning. Demons require structure, hierarchy. Without it, endless war consumes these lands, war that inevitably spills toward Haven.
"What do you propose?" I write.
Pan's seven eyes gleam. "Simple arrangement. Pan claims Duke's fortress, rebuilds. Controls demons here. Keeps them," he searches for the word, "Occupied. Away from human walls."
I tap Aeternus against Demon Shield, the sound drawing nervous shifts from Pan's followers.
AND?
"Information," Pan says immediately. "Warnings when larger threats move. Knowledge of which territories turn against Haven." He grins, showing needle teeth. "Pan has many eyes, many ears. All can serve bone walker's purpose."
A demon alliance. These bones remember countless betrayals. Yet pragmatism outweighs distrust.
Pan bows with exaggerated formality. "Pan keeps word. Bone walker keeps distance. Both profit."
YOU WANT?
I stare at the three-armed demon, waiting for his true price.
Pan's seven eyes blink in sequence, his needle-toothed smile widening as he reads my suspicion.
"What Pan wants?" He taps his middle arm against his chest. "Simple. When bigger boys come—and they will come, you kill them for me."
He gestures at the fortress ruins.
"Duke dead. Marnac dead. News travels fast in demon lands. Others will come to claim territory. Stronger than Pan. Stronger than these followers." His voice drops lower. "Lords like Marnac. Demons seeking promotion. Maybe worse."
Pan draws a line in the rubble with his foot.
"Pan clever, but not strong enough alone. You," he points at me with all three hands, "you kill Duke. Kill Marnac. You kill whatever comes next."
I understand now. The smaller demon seeks a guardian, not an ally. He wants me to eliminate rivals he cannot face himself.
"Pan keeps demons in check. Keeps them away from Haven. Sends warnings when threats move." He circles his territory mark in the dirt. "You keep bigger threats from eating Pan and taking territory. Simple arrangement."
His logic has merit. Better a known lesser demon controlling these lands than constant waves of ambitious replacements. Each new lord would test Haven's defenses, seeking to prove themselves worthy of advancement.
Pan watches me, waiting. "Well, bone walker? Do we have understanding?"
I carve my answer in the rubble with Aeternus's tip:
KILL WHAT THREATENS HAVEN. KEEP DEMONS FROM WALLS.
Pan reads and grins with too many teeth. "Deal made, bone walker."
I sheathe Aeternus across my back. The blade settles into place, its weight familiar despite its new form. The demons part as I walk through their midst. Pan alone offers a gesture that might be respect.
"Darkness will spread again," he calls after me. "Other dukes notice the power shift. They will come to claim what the fortress once held." A pause. "Haven stands in their path."
I do not acknowledge his warning. These chosen bones already know the threats that gather. Duty calls elsewhere.
As I walk north, leaving demon ruins behind, the new weight of Aeternus settles into memory. The blade feels right, despite its reduced size.
The fortress's fall marks only the beginning. Greater monsters remain to hunt.
Let others speak of the fortress's destruction. Let them wonder what manner of monster brought doom to its masters.
These bones stride onward. Haven waits.